Moondoc

The three players on this album have ears like rabbits. If one ticks, another one tocks; if one pings, another one pongs. They are always listening, always responding and always on the money. Fred Hopkins and Ed Blackwell are veterans who are well-known to be blessed with the qualities that make them such consummate players - timing, soulfulness, swinging individuality. Jemell Moondoc is an exciting player with a sweet, warm tone on the alto saxophone and an emotional depth that sets him yards apart from most of his peers. His playing has a very vocal quality which furthers the illusion here that these are four three-way discussions between very wise, very witty and very interesting gentlemen.

Jemeel Moondoc and his bandmates are masters of the terrifying art of communicating how they feel, an art which, of course, takes both great intelligence and great discipline… A fire burns in Jemeel Moondoc’s music and once it was ignited it keeps spreading; it’s the flame you can also feel in the playing of Matthew Shipp, Hilliard Greene, and Newman Taylor Baker.

Recorded live at 3rd Street Music School, New York on October 24, 1981. Konstanze's Delight consists of just three long pieces, the first of them an opportunity for the whole band to show its stuff. As so often in this context, Parker is the cement, setting off on dark, seductive chant that gradually reels in Moondoc, Campbell and the underrated Jamal, who conjures up storms on this record. The two horns seem to be engaged in a game of one-on-one ball, chasing, dodging, body-checking and setting up half a dozen false climaxes before the whole thing unwinds. At longer than half an hour, it palls pretty seriously before time's up, but it's part of a live set and is doubtless pretty typical of what Moondoc was doing at the time. "Chasin' the Moon" is high-octane stuff, a starring vehicle for Jamal and Christi.

Jemeel Moondoc Quintet - Nostalgia In Times Square (1985) {Soul Note 121141-2 rel 1993}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 287 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 125 Mb
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© 1985, 1993 Soul Note | 121141-2
Jazz / Modern Creative / Avant-Garde Jazz / Saxophone

Alto saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc, an open thinking veteran of the 1970's jazz loft scene, cut this forward thinking, yet swinging album for the Italian Soul Note label in 1985. Joining him were a powerful crew of William Parker on bass, Dennis Charles on drums, Rahn Burton on piano and Bern Nix on guitar. Despite just being a quintet, the group was able to achieve a much bigger sound than their size indicated, allowing them to perform a beautiful version of the Charles Mingus composition “Nostalgia in Times Square” which loses nothing of the lushness and longing of the Mingus original.

“Avant garde got soul too” - so opined drummer Charles Moffett with some amount of amusement through a composition title on album for Savoy in 1969. The controversial observation was likely shared if unstated by William Hooker, a generation younger and just getting his start in so-called fire music after an apprenticeship in soul jazz. Light directs an edifying and expansive beam on these efforts, bringing into focus a cache of recordings that trace the drummer’s development from journeyman to self-styled Griot. Adding up to well over four hours of music, the bulk of it is previously unreleased.